02:2 - Forest and a Lake
Dagoliir's Report Having already failed once to reach the Temple of the Divines, but having gone as far as we did, my (mostly consisting of the same) companions and I took the portal from Al Madena to Sunfall. Once there, we made use of the material available at the University, and learned that the bat-snakes possess both the qualities of a snake and a bat, and so might be less active at night, or in the cold. Thus armed, we set forth West from there. Having already travelled as far as the Chasm just a season earlier, we were confident in the path we took, but along the way, we discovered the running path of a herd of Yaks, as they ran towards us. With Nathi's archery skill (and some general savvy and common sense) we were able to catch a few of the yaks, all but one of whom were killed. Stump learned the language of the yaks from the one still alive, and Nathi processed their remains, making many pretty and interesting trinkets, and Solar'ssstrife making good use of the meat to provide us rations for a good week or two following this. In total, we spent almost a week there, dealing with these yaks, and learning from the one left alive. The next time the yaks ran by, Stump turned into a yak, and with some help from Solar'ssstrife, was able to convince them that they should run through the forest of (seemingly) dead trees, clearing an easy path for us to follow that night, all the way to the Chasm. A few were killed from tripping over roots, and being trampled by (who they thought were) their friends, and a few more were carried away by the bat-snakes, but all in all, they almost all survived. We camped a small way into the forest from the Chasm for the rest of the day, remembering about cold-bloodedness and night time. That night, we easily and safely crossed the Chasm, and made it to the Glass Mountains by mid afternoon the next day. Stump now turned into a bird to scout along the mountain range, looking for somewhere to cross, and anything dangerous we may encounter on the way accross. He soon found a pass, and mentioned movement about half-way accross, but that it didn't look like anything very big or dangerous. We made our way to the pass, and having made it safely almost half-way, we heard the bellowing of maddened beasts. Two massive seemingly half-glass yaks blocked our path! Stump, still a bird, tried to crush them by turning back into his normal tree form as he flew towards them, but underestimated his speed, and simply flew past, hitting the glass behind them. Combat ensued, and after a very remarkable feat of my own strength (none of us know how I did it), one yak was dead, along with Stump (Najrai are impressive in death. Scary impressive.), and the remaining yak had a tree growing out of it, but seemed to lose its will to fight. We carried on, over the Glass Mountain range, and found what remained of us in large, empty plains, with Forests in sight. It was evening, and halfway 'twixt the mountains and forest we pitched camp, waking rested, but very cautious - nothing had happened, and nothing had gone wrong. We started to walk through the forest, as it was the fastest route to T'laloc, but I noticed as we started to get deeper and deeper in that I could not see the Sky. No, It was more like the light was going, and what I could see of the sky looked like the night sky, but we couldn't've been walking for more than perhaps an hour, and it seemed most unnatural to me, so we turned back, and walked around the forest. We soon encountered a river, and as we had an Ice Channeller with us, and a lot of yak-hide, we made a boat, using the yak-hide to line it, and provide us with sails. We sailed downriver for a few days, and when we stopped one night, we were near a forest, and heard some noises. Upon poking around through the forest a little, we found a Bear sitting up a tree, holding a Rock. Having talked for a time, the Bear decided to join us on our quest to the Temple of the Divines. He had no name, but was happy with Forest, so such was he named. We took Forest with us, and we started to notice that we and our boat would lift, as in an Earthquake, every so often. The intervals were fairly regular, actually. It was kind of weird. After several days of travelling (and learning that my Songbook seems to be written in a form of Dragon language), we reached an almost island, covered in trees, but with the land kind of swampy - not quite properly submerged, but unpleasant. Just before we managed to get ashore, there was a particularly violent shake, and all of us (except Forest) were lifted a couple of feet off the boat, and as tired as I was, and having landed badly, I was knocked unconscious. When I came to, we were near the edge of a body of water, being carried by Forest. In front of us was a massive lake - we couldn't see the other side, but what we could see was that the lake was a lake of light. This lake of light stretched for further than we could see in front of us. However, behind us (priorly unknown to me) lay a forest. Such a lovely forest - the kind I fancy some of my most wonderful ancestors lived in, I hope. The trees were of glass, with bones running through them - up through the trunk, and along the branches. The joints between the bones were where the knots and bends occurred in the "wood". Forest decided that he decidedly did not like the Lake, though that it was where the Temple used to be. We turned around, and having taken a slightly different route, we came accross a cabin, in which we met an ancient Oni, who breathed her dieing breath as we walked in. Amongst the artifacts we found was a wreath, the kind of which used to be used by pilgrims journeying to the Temple. Realising the number of rations we had left, we returned straightforward to Sunfall, and on to Al Madena. Category:Actual Play